Faster Than Light by AnthonyT

'Can anyone tell me whether there is or is not FTL?"

For the show, this is debatable, because nothing makes it clear. And to be honest, it really doesn't matter, as what is important is the journey, and the length of time, rather than the means used to get there.

In real life, it used to be thought that FTL travel was impossible. Approaching the speed of light required an infinite amount of energy.

Then some wise guy (literally) thought about it and figured that instead of pushing an object faster and faster, which would require more energy, what if you bent space in front of the ship in order to make the distance shorter. If at the same time, you expanded the space behind you, you, in theory anyway, would effectively be travelling faster than light even though you don't move at all.

Its a bit weird and the math will fry your brain. (Believe me! I had to teach myself calculus just to read the paper.) But it is consistent with what we (think we) know about gravity and the nature of space time.

There are a couple research projects, and several papers written on the subject over the last few years. And there is another related subject that might be interesting in this area. You might want to look here:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/0307225
for something else that is interesting. The LANL archives have a lot of papers on the subject.

"my kind of stupid"

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 3:32 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Thanks for the insight, Drakon.

Does anybody know if Serenity or any other ship in the Firefly 'verse has a Faster Than Light drive capability?

--Anthony

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 3:43 AM

Again, it is not stated, nor easy to infer from what is stated. Book's line in the Message I think got cut, which leaves the issue debatable either way. Joss hasn't said definitively either way.

I will argue that for it to be believable, any space faring setting will have to include FTL drive. Solar systems are too small to have enough planets. The distance between stars is vaste. (You may think its a long way to the chemist...etc.) And the distance has to be vaste between stars or else they start screwing up the orbits of the planets. The habitablity zones around stars are not going to accomidate more than a handful of planets. Therefore for "dozens" of worlds, you need multiple star systems.

Multiple star systems far enough apart that the planets don't get perturbed into the big black. And that necessitates FTL drive.

"my kind of stupid."

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 6:29 AM

TRAGICSTORY

Has anyone seen Cowboy Bebop? If I had to guess I would say FTL would be beaten that way.

If you haven't seen Cowboy Bebop, then they have a sort of FTL highway that has on/off ramps through portals

-----------
"Societies are supported by human activity, therefore they are constantly threatened by the human facts of self-intrest and stupidity." --Peter Berger

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 9:42 AM

SLOWSMURF

Most evidence would tend to point to no on firefly. Because its (more or less) supposed to be one system, I think the "a whole new galaxy of earths" was just an exageration. As everyone else has said however, the means is NOT the important part, the journey and time is.

I don't think we'll ever get a 100% answer on most tech questions in the 'verse, so best not to try to hard about other issues(this one itself isn't so unlikely to get answered for certain, but others won't ever be, such as artificial gravity, no technobable to explain that(yay))

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 1:18 PM

NIGHTTRAIN

My guess would be that they are definitely capable of faster than light travel. Otherwise it would not be really impractical for them to move the entire population of earth to a new solar system unless there was some type of wormhole like so people mentioned before. I think that faster than light travel is in the same boat as the laser gun technology. Its probably very expensive to make a ship that can go light speed. Therefore, ship manufactures dont bother making them. My guess is that all the planets settled are reasonably close to eachother so it would not be neccesary to travel light speed to get from, planet to planet.

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 2:54 PM

FLYINFREE

The Firefly 'verse simply can't exist without violating so many laws of time and physics that you might as well throw in moons made of green cheese. Don't get me wrong I think Firefly is the best show ever made, but Joss' goal here is storytelling, not science. The ships travel so slowly they would take months or years to get around the inner planets of our solar system, much less one with dozens of planets, or an entire galaxy. The detection capabilities are so limited they can't tell what's coming at them until it's right on top of them, so really fast speeds would be suicide. Terraforming moons is a problem because moon's spend half their time behind the planets they are orbiting which means they'd all be arctic wastelands. Serenity uses basic thrust technology, no different than the space shuttle. Since Serenity travels from the core planets (ie. Ariel) to the rim worlds (ie. Whitefall), they would have to be close enough to each other to make this possible. The planets would be colliding with each other, screwing up each other's orbits, etc.

Still flyin'...

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Saturday, July 26, 2003 10:39 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Thanks, guys.

I reckon that there has to be gravity and antigravity tech on the show. Doesn't much matter how. I also reckon they don't have shields like most sci-fi shows. I've never seen anything to indicate it.

Since I've never seen Serenity do any kind of hyperspace or warp drive thing, I'm gonna further reckon that she has no integral FTL capability.

On the other hand, someone pointed out in-game dialogue from Book that suggests Serenity and other ships can and do make interstellar trips.

So, I'm figuring that there's gotta be some flavor of gate technology. Though, the exact nature of it isn't like most shows. Probably.

I'm thinking maybe the ship uses a mass-lightening field for normal maneuvers. You know, make the ship have the same mass as a softball so that it can get the most out of its action/reaction thrust drive thingy.

Then maybe the gates handoff a much more powerful field that the ship can hold onto but not generate on its own. Something that can make the ship have the mass of a sub-atomic particle. And hope like hell it doesn't run into anything between this system and that system.

Not so farfetched, really. Space is mostly empty. Empty enough to bet on not crashing into anything except on purpose.

--Anthony

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Sunday, July 27, 2003 5:41 AM

Ever since I saw the original "Serenity" pilot, I've assumed that there was some kind of inertial-drive system, because there's no way that they can travel from a 2-km altitude to space in 10 seconds without it. (for anyone who isn't a scifi geek... an inertial drive cancels out an object's inertia, making it much easier to move, especially in the case of a ship like Serenity... it also has the addedd bonus of shielding the passengers from the double-digit G-force that such acceleration would create) Without an inertial drive, the crew would have become splatters on the walls during the Crazy Ivan Maneuver.

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Sunday, July 27, 2003 5:41 AM

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Monday, July 28, 2003 1:31 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Well, once you have control over gravity, it should be a small matter to manipulate internal G forces.

--Anthony

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Monday, July 28, 2003 3:32 AM

ZEKE023

A while back (the link is posted on the "Technology in the 'Verse" thread) found an interview with one of the writers who said that it was never specified whether this show took place in one or many star systems. However, he felt that it really had to be multiple ones.

This necessitates FTL travel.. and the spiel about the inertial-drive above has to be true too.

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Monday, July 28, 2003 4:54 AM

JUSTME

WARNING: TECHNICAL DISCUSSION! If you prefer to just 'enjoy the story' and don't want to worry about how it all works, skip to the bottom, now!

Another clue to Serenity having inertial-drive is the Episode Out Of Gas, where the engine stops running and Serenity stops moving. For a normal object moving in space this would not happen, it would keep moving until stopped by something (collision, retrorockets, tractor beam, etc). However, if it is using an inertial drive, and the drive fails, it would come to a stop (or at least slow down a lot).
This same fact could be used to argue that Serenity has some form of 'warp drive' since the same thing would happen if the drive were to fail. Like on a planet, in atmo or underwater, if you stop pushing/pulling the vehicle forward it will slow down and stop.

END TECHNICAL DISCUSSION

On an unrelated topic, I have just been assigned a new computer at work and was allowed to name it. What name did I choose?...... Serenity.

JustMe

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Monday, July 28, 2003 5:09 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hi guys,

I don't know if it's the same thing as inertial drive, but I always wondered if mass lightening wasn't used. That is, making the apparent mass of a ship much less. If you make the mass light enough, is it possible to transcend c? I have heard about particles that transcend c. Conventional wisdom when I was in High School suggested that this was impossible.

Any insight?

--Anthony

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003 12:08 AM

BIOTECH

I think its in the episode the message where serenity is flying through the atmosphere of the ice planet and its getting shaken around.

Kaylee explains to the passenger that when the gravity drive of the ship comes into contact with the gravity of a planet there is some interference.

Curiously when the engines stop in out of gas, they still have gravity in the ship.

Serenity can fly near the ground wether its engines are facing front or facing down, which kind of begs the question why it needs jet engines at all if its the gravity drive keeping it in the air.

I think they may just be for maneuvering only, usually forwards, but they can spin you around too in the crazy ivan maneuver from the pilot.

I always assumed that when they were in space and the big yellow flare came from the back of the ship, that was them going faster than light.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003 1:45 AM

BARNEYT

Quote:
Originally posted by biotech:
Curiously when the engines stop in out of gas, they still have gravity in the ship.

Deep science or engineering is definitely not my area of expertise (!), but it made sense to me from a layman's point of view that the gravity generators (especially any auxillary gravity generators) would be completely separate from all the other systems.

After all, if your life support goes, you really don't want to be having to deal with zero gravity as well!

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003 2:32 AM

It really depends on how it is done.

I can see no reason to join the life support and propulsion systems, why these should be interdependent.

However, there is a good reason why gravitional systems and the propulsion systems are so ganged. The various different warp drive proposals and worm hole theories I have read all deal with manipulating the space-time the ship is in.

[note: Propulsion and power need not be the same thing. One could have a power plant separate from the propulsion system. If you lost power, then you would lose both propulsion and life support.]

[But then again, that depends on how life support is made. I come from a submarine background, and life support means srubbers, burners and either O2 generators (hydralize water) or pyrochemical "candles". The O2 goes into tanks, which then can be manually bled back into the ship. Without the need for power. But the burners and scrubbers are off line, and the danger of CO2 and hydrogen gas (or other pollutants) becomes the overriding problem.]

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003 2:40 AM

"That is, making the apparent mass of a ship much less."

I am not sure what this means, so pardon me for going off on this.

You know what the mass is of an object by subjecting it to a known force, and measuring the acceleration of that object, (with respect to some external object) F=MA.

The problem is the definitions are somewhat circular, and relative. How do you know how much force you have applied? Smack a calibrated mass into something?

A "lighter" object will simply undergo a different acceleration when a force is applied. But acceleration is dependent on space covered in a unit of time, (okay, how the amount of space changes as time changes)

So are you really lessening the mass, increasing the distance, or slowing the time?

Also, any measurement we make is relational, dependent on the measure of something else. I am 6 foot tall. At one time some guy planted his foot, and declared that to be the standard measure. I am 6 times as tall as his foot is long.

All measurements are ratios of something. Not things all by themselves.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2003 3:54 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hey Drakon,

Good to have your input. I understand what you are saying in regards to ratios.

10 pounds of force may be enough to move 1 kilogram of matter 10 feet. That sort of thing.

What I am suggesting is that the drive system might cause 1 kilogram of matter to respond as though it was, say, 1 gram of matter. Thus 10 pounds of force may be enough to move 1 gram of matter 1000 feet. The efficiency of propulsion is suddenly and profoundly increased.

On another topic, the question has been raised as to why the ship would still have gravity if a gravity based drive system was damaged. I'd like to suggest that there may be seperate systems to modify internal gravity and external gravity.

For instance, an external gravity system might work on the whole of the vessel to make its apparent weight 1/100th the normal value.

An internal gravity system might affect only things internal to the ship, to make their apparent weight whatever would be appropriate to 1g. The two gravity systems may be able to work together at the same time, such that things inside the ship respond as though under 1g, and the whole of the ship responds as though it is under 1/100 g.

Two seperate systems with two different power requirements and two different mechanisms.

Just a thought.

--Anthony

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 1:07 AM

"What I am suggesting is that the drive system might cause 1 kilogram of matter to respond as though it was, say, 1 gram of matter. Thus 10 pounds of force may be enough to move 1 gram of matter 1000 feet. The efficiency of propulsion is suddenly and profoundly increased."

Right, I get what you are saying. What I am trying to say is that acting like 1 gram is a matter of geometry. How far it moves in a given amount of time. If your 1 kilo mass is hit by a 10 pound force, the difference between it moving "like" a 1 kilo mass or a 1 gram mass is a matter of distance.

I agree that an internal system seems necessarily separate from the external drive system. But I think the power plant has to be separate from either. Note that the engines were dead in Out of Gas, yet they still had lights, (not obviously emergency lighting either) and radio, etc. Which seems to me that there is a redundant power system. Possibly batteries?

"my kind of stupid"

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 2:01 AM

SLOWSMURF

read more of the thread, my post was irrelavent :P

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 8:08 AM

ACEHUNTER

FLYINFREE posted - "The Firefly 'verse simply can't exist without violating so many laws of time and physics .... Terraforming moons is a problem because moon's spend half their time behind the planets they are orbiting which means they'd all be arctic wastelands."

My response:
Um.... Nope. Unless the planets have no axial tilt, the plane of the moon's orbit will keep it out of the planet's shadow most of the time. How often are there lunar eclipses? Usually there are only 2 every few years, lasting about 3 hours from start to finish. This is because the moon's orbital plane is inclined with respect to the Earth's orbital plane with the Sun. You may be thinking of the fact that the moon is in darkness half the time - that's only true if the moons are tidal-locked to their planets. In that case, one half of their orbital period is spent "in darkness".

-Matt P.

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 8:15 AM

FLYINFREE

The "comfort zone" around a star that earth type planets can exist in is very thin in stellar terms. A moon orbiting a gas giant would not be able to stay in this zone, so would therefore bake and/or freeze as it moved closer/further from the sun during its lunar orbital path.

Still flyin'...

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 3:58 PM

ACEHUNTER

That depends entirely on the star. The comfort zone of an "F" or "G" class star could be as wide as 60 million km. For "K" and "M" stars the comfort zone would be significantly smaller. In either case, the moon's orbital radius will be smaller than the width of the comfort zone. As long as the gas giant (or other planet, moons don't necessarily have to be orbiting a gas giant) is within the comfort zone, the moon will be also. Whether the moon will bake / freeze depends entirely on the radius and eccentricity of its orbit around the star.

Even if the gas giant is outside the comfort zone (to the colder side), if the gas giant radiates enough heat, the moon could be habitable even without much sunlight from the parent star.

-Matt P.

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Wednesday, July 30, 2003 4:02 PM

FUTURESMITH

Oh we fans have so much fun discussing how to make our fantasies more "real". But I've always liked what Diane Carey, the Star Trek writer said when asked by a fan to explain some piece of technology she had included in her story. "It's Magic - it's anything I need it to be to advance the story." And in keeping with the old chestnut that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinquishable from magic, I think we should continue to assume that Serenity flys where and how fast she needs to go to tell the story that Joss wants to tell. And that as we all know - IS Magic.

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Thursday, July 31, 2003 12:00 AM

THEOBSOLETEMAN

Future Smith - Yup, in reality, SF writers make the tech fit thier stories. But the difference between SF and fantasy is that SF writers generally explain why something we believe to be impossible can happen, even if the technology they come up with to explain it is purely fictional. If you simply show ordinary rockets firing, and have your heros in a new star system three days later, that's fantasy. If you at least pay a bit of lip service to "warp drive", "hyperspace" or even just, "FTL stardrive", you've at least explained that some new tech not known to us today has made this possible. I suspect Joss is not big into this sort of SF stuff, but a handful of mentions would have been welcome. Is it one system, or many? Is there a difference between Serenity traveling slower than light and faster than light? Answering these very simple SF questions would have helped satisfy a lot of diehard SF fans, who are used to getting at least some basic answers to such questions at least going as far back as the 1956's Forbidden Planet (the first movie to mention the standard SF premise of hyperspace).

Acehunter - You're absolutely right that the comfort zone of a much larger star would likely be much larger than that of Earth's sun. Given a few gas giants, with a few dozen moons per planet, plus a handful of Earth-sized "core planets", in my mind accounts very well for what we see in the show.

As far as humans reaching this (admittedly huge) other solar system, you don't actually need FTL travel to account for a past historical exodus from Earth. Simply assume some really huge ships, capable of even just half the speed of light, and a star with multiple planets 20 light years away could be reached in 40 years (or a star 50 LY away reached in 100 years). Yes, it's a long time, but since Firefly takes place at least 500 years in the future, there's nothing to say that the past exodus from Earth didn't take as much as a century (it may have been a generational ship--where those who started grew old and died, or it may have involved suspended animation).

I have to comment on at least some clues suggesting "one system, no FTL travel" from the show:

- "Wargames" - It's mentioned that Serenity has traveled 20,000 miles from its last destination. That's not exactly an interstellar distance; it's not even the distance between planets in our own Solar System. However, it does seem like a reasonable distance between two moons of the same planet.

- "Serenity" - The Blue Hand Guys mention having traveled "83 million miles", as if it's a big deal. 83 million miles is nothing in interstellar terms, but could very well be the distance between planets in one system (the distance from the sun to the Earth is 93 million miles, for example).

- "Serenity" - Mention is made of transporting fugitives "across interplanetary borders". Note the use of "interplanetary", not "interstellar".

- No episode ever mentions arriving in a new star system. Destinations are always refered to by the name of the planetary body--again, implying planets and moons within one system.

- The concept of "inner core" or "central" planets and "the outer rim" suggests one solar system. If we're talking about multiple systems, there's no reason why the privileged planets should be at the center--our own sun is on the edge of our Galaxy--it would take much longer to reach the center of our Galaxy, if we left Earth, than other stars nearby. If we went to a new galaxy, the outer edges would be more accessible than the interior. And going to a new galaxy, as in the phrase "A whole new galaxy of Earths", makes little sense. The nearest galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy, 2 million light years away. Surely there are many stars with planets in our own Milky Way much, much closer.

- The physics of "Objects in Space" would appear to be impossible unless Serenity were traveling at a constant sublight speed. I can't see the bounty hunter drifting down from his ship to Serentiy if Serenity were traveling in hyperspace, or using some sort of warp drive. The physics depicted suggest standard sublight laws of momentum, as do all the other FX depicted in the series.

Again, I suspect Joss himself doens't give a damn about such things. But the "one system" concept is certainly borne out by Book's original opening narration (which I thought was perfect for the show), and by the distance references in "Serenity". It could well be that it was Tim Minear who came up with the basic SF concepts for the show, and that they got deliberately fudged for the sake of storytelling. It would be nice if Joss or Tim came clear on this. It also makes me wonder if any sort of answers to these very basic questions would have been given had the show continued.

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Thursday, July 31, 2003 3:31 AM

CALHOUN

Can anyone provide the blueprints for serenitys propulsion systems. I'd like to build me one and enter it in the X-Prize contest.

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Friday, August 1, 2003 12:57 AM

"The "comfort zone" around a star that earth type planets can exist in is very thin in stellar terms."

Actually you might be surprised. The zone is a function of stellar heat, which in turns is a function of mass of the star, but for our sun, it is estimated to be somewhere between the orbits of Venus and Mars, (roughly .7 to 1.5 AU)

Also, gas giant moons stay pretty close to their parent. There is a kind of tug of war going on between the gas giant and the central star. So moons cannot get too far away from the planet, or else they get peeled off.

James Kasting has written extensively on this subject.

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Friday, August 1, 2003 6:33 AM

I really do believe that Joss designed his show around multiple solar systems. There have been many quotes sited from the show to support this. Also, there have been no clues given that support Serenity moving faster than light, and also no evidence of any use of jump gates (although maybe they exist and we have simply not seen them yet).

Where does that leave us? Either Joss "screwed the pooch" and didn't think of this, or (hopefully) he has some as-yet-unexplained method of getting from one solar system to another.

So, I propose that the science-minded among us try to figure out another way to move between solar systems that does not require warp drives or jump gates. Something that would work in the Firefly world we have been presented. It doesn't have to be based on hard science, just internally consistent and reasonable to the lay person. After all, Firefly is not "hard science fiction" so let's not try to make it so.

But, on the other hand, if someone comes up with a novel and brilliant idea, maybe someone will use it someday (and we all know that one or more of the original FF writers has visited this site in the past - maybe we can give them something to work with)

Anyone up for the task?

----------------
SIMON: What happens if they board us?
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing
and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

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Friday, August 1, 2003 7:10 AM

CAPTBAGGYTROUSERS

Okay, I won't even try to come up with a workable theory here, but I want to point out once again that in Out of Gas, when the atmo and propulsion are out, there are still some lights and a working beacon (back-up battery, probably), but the gravity is also still on. The ship in Bushwhacked also had working gravity.

If I were any more than a layman I would try to tie this and the propulsion issue together, perhaps by suggesting the Firefly transport afterburner is coupled with some kind of gravitational slingshot effect.

Good thing I am a layman, and can do no such thing. (It's science fiction. Don't hit me.)

History repeats the old conceits

http://topshelftvshow.com
Updated! Improved! Shiny!

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Friday, August 1, 2003 7:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptBaggytrousers:
Okay, I won't even try to come up with a workable theory here, but I want to point out once again that in Out of Gas, when the atmo and propulsion are out, there are still some lights and a working beacon (back-up battery, probably), but the gravity is also still on. The ship in Bushwhacked also had working gravity.

If I were any more than a layman I would try to tie this and the propulsion issue together, perhaps by suggesting the Firefly transport afterburner is coupled with some kind of gravitational slingshot effect.

You know, it's a common thing in TV-based science fiction to have artificial gravity and life support completely separate from the main drive.
Partly this is a practical matter, since it is expensive to have people float on TV, but also, it makes sense to separate them if you can in the "real" world. Either another power source drives them, or some form of battery backup (as was mentioned before).

What I was thinking of, is trying to come up with a completely new form of movement that does not require the ship to be special. In other words, any space ship can travel between the stars using this. A "jump gate" is one simple solution, but there must be many other great ideas waiting to be discovered. We just have to "think outside the box" as people "who are annoying" often say.

One clue might be seen in "Serenity", when they pass the Reavers ship. Does anyone else wonder why they pass so damn slowely? It looks like you could get out and walk faster. Maybe they were inside some sort of hyperspace tunnel (like Babylon-5) and that is also why they passed so close to each other. Maybe they really do use hyperspace tunnels (jump gate driven or warp drive) but it would be interesting to try to come up with a 3rd idea...

----------------
SIMON: What happens if they board us?
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing
and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

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Friday, August 1, 2003 9:30 AM

WHOODAHN

Don't forget that they can land and take off without anyone strapping in during acceleration. They can do a Crazy Ivan and just hang onto a bulkhead. They can even take a load of cattle into space without strapping them down. It's not only gravity plates, it's anti-gravity plates.

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Friday, August 1, 2003 11:14 AM

HOTHERSALE

You gotta love the vagaries and inconsistencies of SF shows like Firefly.

I particularly enjoyed how slowly Serenity and the Reaver ship appeared to be traveling when they first crossed paths in the pilot episode. Made them look like they were going about 50 mph. The artisitic license made for a very cool shot, however.

I for one am thankful that they haven't gone out of their way to explain the technology more than they have. When shows do that kinda thing, it often comes across as unnecessary exposition. I'm sure we would have slowly learned more about their 'verse as the storyline required it, but not before.

________________________

Live life with Blue Sun!

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Friday, August 1, 2003 11:48 PM

"So, I propose that the science-minded among us
try to figure out another way to move between solar systems that does not require warp drives or jump gates."

The jump gates I will give you, as that is an external device. But why no warp drive? There is no evidence to suggest there is no FTL travel. Just none to suggest there is, (except the obvious size stuff we have talked about earlier)

The distance between stars is simply too vaste. Its 5 light YEARS to the next star. If you travelling slower than light, then its gonna take longer.

Right now, I don't see any way of doing this, in the time alloted without some form of FTL travel. And I don't see any other way of doing this than by warp drive (metric engineering) which is not the voodoo science it was thought to be not that long ago.

"my kind of stupid"

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Tuesday, August 5, 2003 2:18 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon:
"So, I propose that the science-minded among us
try to figure out another way to move between solar systems that does not require warp drives or jump gates."

The jump gates I will give you, as that is an external device. But why no warp drive? There is no evidence to suggest there is no FTL travel. Just none to suggest there is, (except the obvious size stuff we have talked about earlier)

The distance between stars is simply too vaste. Its 5 light YEARS to the next star. If you travelling slower than light, then its gonna take longer.

Right now, I don't see any way of doing this, in the time alloted without some form of FTL travel. And I don't see any other way of doing this than by warp drive (metric engineering) which is not the voodoo science it was thought to be not that long ago.

"my kind of stupid"

Drakon,
Please note that I did not say, "no FTL drives" - I said no "warp" drive. My point is that we should try to imagine something new instead of trying to fit old and overused SF technology (warp drive and jump gates) into this new and innovative show.

For example, off the top of my head, lets say you have ships diving into the center of the sun to "jump" between solar systems. You could invent a theory that postulates the existence of something similar to a small wormhole at the center of all medium-sized stars, which interconnects them to other nearby stars. I would invent another term though, since "wormhole" is also overused.

This idea is similar to a jump gate but requires no external "gate." All you need is a ship that can withstand the intense heat, pressure, and gravity for a few minutes, and a good navigational system to steer the ship to the exact center of the star. For plot purposes, it has the advantage of keeping you from simply warping away from the bad guys (too easy) or requiring a Gate that would be owned and controlled by the Alliance (too restrictive).

So, you fly around a solar system using conventional propulsion, then when a job comes along that requires you to go to a different system, you lock everything down and head towards the sun. Your angle of approach towards the sun determines which nearby star you will jump to, so you lock in the navigation and hope for the best. Right before you enter the sun's outer corona, you hit full burn and blast your way into the center. A few minutes later (if all goes well) you emerge on the far side of a different sun and a whole new system of planets.

Jumping between systems would be more expensive (extra fuel used in hard burn, extra energy for gravity drive to protect you from the sun, etc) and dangerous (interior of stars are nasty places if something goes wrong) so you would try to get work inside each of the systems when ever possible.

This is only one example and I just made it up.
Anyone else care to try?

----------------
SIMON: What happens if they board us?
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing
and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

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Tuesday, August 5, 2003 3:50 AM

That is the point I was trying to make. Warp drive may be cliche, but then so are wings on an airplane. Right now that is the only way I can see of reaching FTL speeds.

It does not need to postulate a host of unknown or doubtful things, such as wormholes in the center of stars. It is possible within existing theories, and has changed to an engineering problem rather than a theoretical one.

That is what Alcubierre's paper did, was to get people to think in such a manner and destroy the whole "FTL is impossible under General Relativity" meme.

Short of some form of metric engineering, I don't see how you are going to overcome the limitation that relativity poses. I don't see how you can escape from relativity, so why not use it to your advantage?

For plot purposes, warping away from the bad guys is not so much an option as they would have identical technology too.

Perhaps I am looking at it differently. I can see how Alcubierre's paper, and the several papers based on it, can work. And would like to someday have my own ship and zoom around the galaxy. (I know that is crazy, but let me tell you about these two crazy bicycle mechanics from Ohio one of these days) It fits. And partially because I see this as one good solution, I have trouble looking for another.

"my kind of stupid"

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Tuesday, August 5, 2003 5:09 AM

Drakon,
I used to work for LANL and I read the papers too (I was actually the first here to post the LANL papers on another thread). I didn't want to get into a discussion of the merits of the paper - my goal was just to bring up other "new" ideas. If you want to stay with the warp bubble idea for Firefly, that's great.
Only Joss knows what they really used (and maybe we will when the movie comes out)
JR

If any others want to discuss the paper with Drakon, jump in now (it is a worthy subject).

----------------
SIMON: What happens if they board us?
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing
and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

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Thursday, August 7, 2003 6:13 AM

THEROGUEROOSTER

I thought I'd introduce myself to the community and muddy the water of this discussion by throwing my own 2 cents into the pot.

Quote:
Originally posted by TheObsoleteMan:
- The concept of "inner core" or "central" planets and "the outer rim" suggests one solar system. If we're talking about multiple systems, there's no reason why the privileged planets should be at the center--our own sun is on the edge of our Galaxy--it would take much longer to reach the center of our Galaxy, if we left Earth, than other stars nearby. If we went to a new galaxy, the outer edges would be more accessible than the interior. And going to a new galaxy, as in the phrase "A whole new galaxy of Earths", makes little sense. The nearest galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy, 2 million light years away. Surely there are many stars with planets in our own Milky Way much, much closer.

There's no reason why the core worlds have to be situated near the center of a solar system or the center of a galaxy. The central planets could simply be those situated near the center of colonized space, while the outer rim lies along its edges. Or, if humanity only expanded out in one direction, perhaps the core worlds are those nearest the "Earth That Was."

I'm also perfectly willing to believe that the FTL technology in Firefly is based upon principles of science as of yet undiscovered in modern science. There's no reason why FTL has to be done with warp drives or hyperspace or wormholes or with any other 20th/21st century notions of space travel. After all, the show takes place 500 years in the future, which is an incredibly long time when thinking about technological and scientific advancement. Just look at our scientific knowledge of space today and compare it to our knowledge 500 years ago, when Copernicus was tinkering around with the novel concept that perhaps the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around.

If I had to vote on it, I'd say that the show spans multiple star systems. As for how the Serenity travels between them, I am of the opinion that her side thrusters are used for atmospheric flight and attitude control, while her "Firefly" drive pushes her along at FTL speeds. (Yes, I know that the term Firefly typically refers to the class of ship and not its propulsion system -- I am using it here to describe the part of the ship that gives the Firefly class its designation, namely the aft section of the ship that "lights up like a Firefly" when engaging in FTL speeds.) Once Wash points the ship in a direction and kicks the Firefly drive in gear, they travel along a straight line toward their destination. Any course corrections needed are accomplished by reorienting the ship via its side thrusters and punching the Firefly drive again.

Anyway, that's it. You guys have a great community here and I am right there with the bunch of you with my fingers crossed, hoping against hope that the crew of the Serenity gets another chance to keep her flying.

-tRR

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Thursday, August 7, 2003 12:36 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hi all,

I keep hearing about particles that exist in our universe that naturally traverse the 'speed of light' barrier.

Can anyone talk about these particles and tell us how they do what they do? Perhaps if we can come to an understanding of things in nature that cross the light barrier, then we can begin to understand how to simulate it.

--Anthony

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Friday, August 8, 2003 1:03 AM

I think you are referrring to "tacyons" Here is how (I think) it works.

Special relativity says that mass goes up as an object travels closer and closer to the speed of light. At SOL, or c, the mass is infinite. But after that???

The formula for computing the mass of a particle is dependent on comparing its velocity (which is relative) to c (which is constant for all inertial reference frames) SQRT(C^2 - V^2)

What is the square root of a negative number?

If it has any physical meaning, then there should be particles who travel faster than light. One of the cool things is that if you try to remove energy from them, they get faster. They never cross the light barrier, but are trapped going faster, if they exist at all.

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Friday, August 8, 2003 3:14 AM

For more information on FLT travel, check out these NASA and University sites:

Tachyons:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970612b.html
http://www.physics.gmu.edu/~e-physics/bob/tachyons.htm

Warp drive:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/warp.htm

The page with descriptions of wormholes, Alcubierre’s "Warp Drive" and other FLT subjects, go here:
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/ideachev.htm#worm

Also, simple web searches will find more information than you can stand...

----------------
SIMON: What happens if they board us?
ZOE: If they take the ship, they'll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing
and if we're very very lucky, they'll do it in that order.

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Friday, August 8, 2003 8:05 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Okay, so I can't really claim to understand exactly what all the stuff on the tachyon page means. BUT...

What if you could invert the mass of an object? What if you could give an object, like a ship, negative mass?

--Anthony

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Saturday, August 9, 2003 2:39 AM

Asked this question once, and the answer is really cool. Its largely extrapalation from what we know about positive mass, lets see if I remember it all.

First off, a negative mass object would be repelled by a positive mass object. Which means that if you bonded the two of them together (mounted one of each on a stick) the positive mass would be attracted to the negative one, and the negative one would be repelled.

Which means it would move away. Which means, if they were bound together, they would keep moving away, picking up speed, keep going faster and faster until the masses separated. Kind cool.

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 11:37 AM

GROUNDED

"Which means that if you bonded the two of them together (mounted one of each on a stick) the positive mass would be attracted to the negative one, and the negative one would be repelled."

I have to disagree. Positive mass (as you've called it) attracts positive mass - what we call gravitational attraction. If you assume that negative mass exists then negative mass must be attracted to negative mass. Thus negative mass would repel positive mass and likewise positive mass would repel negative mass and hence the two 'balls on sticks' would repel one another.

The analogy is charge. With charge you have positive and negative but in this instance positive and negative attract and likes repel. If you change this so that likes attract then you must have opposites repel.

To be honest though 'negative mass' doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. Charge is a property of mass but mass in not a property of anything - it just is!

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 11:44 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

The concept of negative mass makes no sense to me as well. But this tachyon business is supposed to involve negative mass.

--Anthony

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 2:31 PM

CHRISTHECYNIC

Last I checked the closest thing to negative mass was vacuum energy. Sort of like Einstein's cosmological constant except it really exists.

Anyway, is there any reason that it can't be in one system? There is evidence from the show to support that it is, and if there were multiple planets in orbits, orbits close together, and atmospheres that trapped vastly different amounts of heat I don't see why it couldn't all be in one system.

There are only around 70 "worlds" and many are likely moons, assuming a star with a large habitability zone and what I already said why couldn’t it be in one system?

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 2:40 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Maybe you don't even need a large habitability zone.

What if you had a large binary star system?

What if you collapsed a few Jovians into stars like in 2010?

What if several dozen large asteroids were forced into a controlled collision to form a new planetoid of roughly 1g? What if this were done a dozen times?

There ARE "What If's" that don't involve FTL.

And I think I remember the term being hundreds of earths, yeah? I'd think that means at least 200 planets colonized. A Jovian can have twenty or so big moons, I reckon. The system would have to be HUGE.

-Anthony

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 2:48 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hey... it so happens we have a trinary star system right next door.

"Alpha Centauri is the nearest star system to us. The binary star system Alpha Centauri A and B is circled at a great distance by a third member of this trinary star system. "

--Anthony

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 4:20 PM

VETERAN

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Quote:
...I want to point out once again that in Out of Gas, when the atmo and propulsion are out, there are still some lights and a working beacon (back-up battery, probably), but the gravity is also still on. The ship in Bushwhacked also had working gravity.

Yep. And in Serenity the battery power of the wreck they salvage is deadm hence they're floating out the cargo. Only hole there is that there is no gravity as they enter Serenity with the salvage until they add the atmosphere, then they make a point of showing the boxes drop.

Of course,it may be that they intended to do more of these effects but it got lost in the story line, or had to be cut because of the budget.

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Tuesday, August 12, 2003 4:40 PM